It is significant of his personal popularity with his colleagues that after four years of the most trying, grinding legislative achievement in the history of the republic, he carried from the chamber at the close the confidence and affection of the men with whom he wrought. This was due in large part to his infinite patience and never-failing tact. He never assumed the rôle of a dictator. It would have been repugnant to his nature, and would have outraged his sense of the proprieties. Had he, or any one else undertaken to lead as Aldrich led for the opposition so many years, he would have invited an inevitable revolt. He carried his points by his insistent pursuasiveness. It was much easier for his colleagues to conform with his wishes than to run counter to them. I am indebted to Senator Charles S. Thomas, one of the keenest intellects in the senate, for an appraisement of his leadership from the viewpoint of his fellow senators: “Senator Kern was the most kindly, efficient and practical of men, and an ideal leader for a majority just coming into control of a great body like the senate, after an exile of twenty years. No other member of that majority could, in my judgment, have done the work so well and so satisfactorily as Senator Kern; hence his unanimous selection for that position was inevitable when the sixty-third congress was organized. “The senate was composed in the main of members from the southern states, with a large contingent of new men from the north and west, having comparatively little legislative experience, but all eager to accomplish the legislation promised the people by the national Democracy. This desire very naturally aroused ambitions for chairmanships and other places of distinction upon the great committees, threatening rivalries and possible conflict that might prove dangerous to the very slight majority then existing. These differences were adjusted by Senator Kern after many conferences, some of them presenting difficult situations, and some apparently incapable of solution. The senator’s judgment of men, his methods of appeal and his wonderful tact in dealing with his associates enabled him in the course of ten or fifteen days to report a plan of organization absolutely satisfactory to all of his associates with a solitary exception. Even that exception finally gave way to Senator Kern’s resourceful, courteous and generous methods of treatment. I think it can be said with perfect truth that the enactment of the great program of reform legislation by the sixty-third congress was due as much to Senator Kern’s splendid leadership as to any other single influence. An epitaph to that effect should be written upon his monument.”